, 1887-08-18
HI OPIUM FARMER.
Tho wIet he'd Hindoo WlrD I:rWain
POM. MN WeaIth Within IL. Lru sp.

laDOTS Win DuI Three OBJECT III view.
These are. first, to decorate his wife pro-
fusely with ornaments, TO eat o. q brass
plate, and to be in a position t. make a
great display when his eldest sOn is mar
ried. As far as the wife's irwelry is
concerned, that is a matter of religious
duty, the Hindoo religion demanding
that certain ornaments must be worn by
married women, and the real wealth, if
wealth it may be called, of the native
landowner is his wife's jewels, and what
ever n husbandman can gain by his pop
by culture he Immediately invests in
jewely, the same as the Yankee farmer
places his money in bond and mortgage.
If the Indian farmer on marrying cannot
do any better in the way of iewelry, he
must give the bride he obtains lead or
naments. This keeps the religious form,
but the very first year he has been ener-
getic enough to raise a good opium crop
the lead jewelry gives place to silver or
gold. On the marriage of his oldest son
an Indian farmer will waste in a weeks
Notification the entire savings of years of
%privation.
at is a strange sight to see the Hindoo
women at work in the fields, gathering
poppy juice or picking weeds, decked out
with huge gold rings, bracelets, anklets
and chains, and wearing but a single
short petticoat and a gay colored wrap of
light texture. The wants of the Indian
raiat, Us the farmer is called, are very
few and simple. A thatohed roof, cover
ing four confined mud walls, shelters him,
and there are families who have lived for
hundreds of years, generation after gen.
Grafton, in the same howell like home
stead. The farmers suit of every day
working clothes is a very scant cloth
fastened about his loins. His dress up
suit is a big cotton sheet folded about
him. His entire family, from himself
down to the smallest child he owns, that
is not too small to crawl about among
the poppy plants and know the difference
between a weed n a poppy, share in the
toll of che field. The small children are
clothed just as they came into the world,
and appear comfortable, nc matter how
hot the sun shines or how low the tenn
perarure may fall-and in November,
December, January and February, when
the bulk of the field work is done, the
weather is quite cold enough for at least
summer clothing.
"These happy go lucky tillers of the
soil depend entirely on the government
to keep them going year after year in the
matter of farming. Thus the govern
ment advances the poppy seed that is to
be sown, loans the money by which the
land is irrigated and the bullocks pur-
chased to carry on the work. The cul-
tivator will not till more of his land than
he can manage without other help than
his own immediate family, and, conse-
quently, n patch leased to any one farmer
that is half an acre in extent is an excep-
tfnnn11y 1,r,ra Ln1I;n1 Tho Dpa turaptiath
of an acre, called a bigka, is the ~favorite
quantity of land for a farmer to seed
down with peoples, but he will put in a
tenth or a sixth on a pinch. There are
untold advantages in the growing of
opium for extended enterprise, but the
RANT will not expend the smallest Indian
coin to acquire these advantages, and
with it great gain. for the profit in opium
production is large, owing to the policy
of the government in paying large prices
for the product as a means of precluding
Illicit traffic in it.
THE farmers themselves have no direcj
intercourse with the government. Each
village of opium growers select some
native as their representative or agent
with the authorities. He is called the
lambardar. 1t is his business to give es-
Inmates to the government agents as to
the probable yield of the farms he repre-
sents, on which the loans and advances
may be based. He manages every trans
action between the government and the
farmers, and for his services he gets q
commission oil all the opium he causes to
be delivered to what are known as the
weighing stations, points where the pro-
due of certain districts Is carried by the
growers and turned over to the agents.
1.-THE opium gathering begins in Janu-
airy Oh February. The poppy flowers
have then given way to the seed pods,
which are lanced in the afternoon. The
thick gum, the opium, exudes from the
cut made in the pod, and at daylight the
next morning the entire family of a
raiat are astir in the fields, scraping the
opium from the pods, the incisions being
carefully closed again, by rubbing the
finger sharply up and down on the cuts,
which CLUES them. If carefully treated
the pods will expand literally to six
landings. The opium is at first placed in
brass vessels, and the dew that may adj
here to it is drained off. Then it is
kneaded like dough until it is at the
proper consistency, when it is packed in
new earthern jars and is ready to be car
ried to the weighing stations.
1.-The order to fetch in the years crop
of opium is generally given early in April,
and that is the most interesting season of
the year to the raiat and his family. Each
farmer is notified that on a certain day he
must be at the weighing station of his
district for the testing and weighing. An
entire village, men, women and children,
join in joyor5 procession when this notice
is received, and, laden with the jars of
opium, start for the destination. They
travel only ut night, as the heat of the
Sun is SO great at that season of the year
that the journey would be uncomfortable.
All day they lounge in the groves and
shady lanes, feasting and joing in various
r]ecrcations. These wayside camps of the
opium villages are picturesque sights to
the traveller through these. provinces.
When a group arrive at the weighing
station they are ranged in long lines be,
fore the examiner, who examines the
opium of each one and marks the quality
and weight of each jar with a piece OF
chalk on the side of the jar. The exam
liners are experts, and can tell by the feel,
ing whether a sample of opium is adul.
terated, but they put it to chemical tests
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